


The Art of Seduction

by fuckinsteverogers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Mentions of Someone Hurt, Pining, Teasing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 11:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17405981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckinsteverogers/pseuds/fuckinsteverogers
Summary: A Seductress is what they call you, capable of seducing any person into submission. Joining the Avengers as a viable asset, you come to realise that you might not be as capable of seduction as you once thought.





	1. The Art of Seduction

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this in place of Searing Hot, but I decided to just duplicate Pure Arousal’s structure and put this on the back burner, but I have been in a slump with requests and just wanted to write something different for a while. I am either going to make this a three part or two-part series, so let me know if you want me to continue.

Capable of seducing a gay man is how Tony had introduced you to the team all those months ago. After all these months, you had convinced yourself that Steve Rogers was an incredibly gay man; one you had no chance of bedding.

It wasn’t like you to bed the men you seduced, it was only beneficial; to get you into a bar, or a free drink, or get them to drop the gun they pointed at your head. None of them meant anything, none of them were reciprocal, until you met Captain Rogers, standing tall and muscular in the corner of the room, holding a small mug in his large hands and you could have dropped dead right then and there and you’d be happy.

You’d wanted him… You still do, but your advances were met with nothing, not the slightest of pupil dilation or flex of his muscles, just coldness.

You told yourself the dress was for you, not him, but it was like talking to a brick wall that is your stubbornness. If he didn’t want you, you didn’t want him.

Tony hasn’t been the type of person to throw extravagant parties since he started with his therapist, but his birthday was a clear exception. It meant you could wear a heavily revealing dress and flaunt yourself to the Captain and hopefully, he’d ravish you like you’d wanted for so long.

But when you saw him down his glass of scotch, stand from his seat on the stool and walk from the room towards the elevator when he hadn’t even glanced at you the entire night, you were not having a bar of it.

Following closely after him, leaving the room full of all of Tony’s friends and your fellow Avengers.

“Captain,” You called after him, your sheer dress floating around you as you strutted towards him. His ranking got his attention, he stopped, pressing the elevator button before turning to look at you. His face shifting to annoyance and if you weren’t so determined, it would hurt your feelings.

“Yes, Agent?” The formality makes your chest tighten, but you maintain your megawatt smile, grinning up at him. 

“Shall we drop the formality, Steve?” You questions, shifting to stand directly in front of him as he gazes down at you with the same look of irritation that he’s given you the entire time you’ve been here. “Why’re you leaving the party so early?”

“Not my thing,” He replies, pressing the elevator button again. The urgency to get away from you is insulting, but it doesn’t falter your spirits.

You shift your smile to one of sweetness, shifting to place your hand on his bicep. You feel him tense under your touch, uncomfortable, but you’re determined to find out why, so your hand remains grasped over the tight shirt he has wrapped around his muscular frame.

“How about I keep you company then, Steve?” You ask. Your voice comes out like syrup; sickly sweet. 

You swear you see Steve begin to smile, his lips twitching, but when he mashes the elevator button again, you wonder if you were just seeing things.

“Not tonight, Y/N,” He replies. The doors of the elevator slide open, your heartbreaking as Steve moves, ripping your grasp from his arm, and you don’t realise your smile is gone and your eyes are beginning to tear up until he turns once he has entered the elevator and looks at you with those beautiful blue eyes. 

“Have a good night, Captain,” You finish. The pain of rejection stinging your cheeks. Steve opens his mouth to reply, but you suddenly can’t bear to be near him, turning away from him and rushing back to the party.

Your eyes ache with the pain of his coldness, confusion running deep within your chest. You duck your head to avoid the gaze of your teammates and find the bar with the intention of drowning yourself in alcohol.

You’ve been rejected before, it was a part of life, even for someone of your skill, but none of them even bruised your ego and then came along Steve fucking Rogers who only had to say ‘Not tonight, Y/N’ and your heart was being crushed beneath his shiny boots.

He’d rejected you so many times, not in so many words, but with the looks, with the body language, with the instructions to get back to work, but it’d never felt as painful as it had tonight; in a dress you’d told yourself was for you, but was so clearly for him, with your lips painted red and your eyes only for him. 

“What’s got you down, doll?” Bucky asks, taking a seat next to you as your cherry red lips wrap around the martini glass.

You take a hardy sip of the gin and pluck the olive from within the alcohol, not regarding Bucky, avoiding his eyes for fear of breaking down. Instead, you shove the olive in your mouth and chew, ignoring his questions. 

“What did he do?” He asks finally, annoyance in his voice, but something tells you that the annoyance is for Steve and not you.

“Whatever do you mean?” You reply sarcastically, draining the martini and shoving it down the bar, signalling to the bartender.

You consider getting up and leaving, going to your quarters, showering the humiliation away and burying yourself beneath a mountain of blankets, but Bucky’s insistent stare demands attention.

“His rejections have never affected you this poorly before.” You scoff at Bucky’s remark, twisting in the chair to regard him with your full attention.

“It always affects me poorly. It always hurts, but this one was different. It wasn’t the words, it was the way he said them,” You inform Bucky, flickering your watering eyes up to his kind ones. “Like I disgusted him.”

“You don’t disgust him, doll,” Bucky reassures you. His hand shifts to your bare knee and the comfort would have been appreciated on a normal day, but today was not a pro-touching one.

Shaking your head, you stand, knocking his hand from your knee. Bucky shifts into confusion, watching you move away from him. He’d never seen you shy away from a touch before, but then again, today wasn’t a good day for you.

“You didn’t see how he looked at me,” is all you say before leaving the party.

Over the next few days, you were itching to burn that dress, rid yourself of the horrid memories, but it didn’t seem worth it. It didn’t seem necessary when you were burdened with the remembrance every time Steve entered a room, or every time you all sat down for dinner. 

Everyone noticed the change in you, silence was not accustomed in the facility when you are around, but when you hadn’t made some crude remark about someone’s sex life or wanting to fuck someone or tried to seduce anyone of the team; concern filtered through the Avengers.

Heartbroken was the only way you could describe it. You’d spent all the months with the Avengers envisioning how wonderful you and Steve would be together, how amazing his laugh would be when you caused it; you’d only heard it at the dinner table or over the intercom, never when you were talking or when you were more than a bystander. 

You’d admired him for so long, listened to him talk, remarking the old days, you’d listened to his instructions, wanting to please him but every time you stepped even slightly out of line, you were met with a formal warning, whereas Natasha could completely evade the entire mission plan and she’s be given a stern talking to, nothing legally binding or paperwork inducing.

You’d been easily forgiving of it, shaking it off as favouritism, but you never considered that it was because he hates you. 

You decided to opt out of missions until further notice, explaining your circumstances to Tony who vowed to kick the shit out of the Captain, which has made you smile a moment, before ensuring him that it was not something you wanted to be done. You just wanted some time to heal.

“She what?” Steve had yelled when Tony told him about your withdrawal, red rising to his skin.

“Don’t go near her, Rogers. Or I’ll break every bone in your body,” Tony had threatened. You hated to think about your two favourite people fighting, especially because of you, but you knew the protectiveness Tony had for you.

“She’s a member of my team and if she wants to withdraw from missions, she brings it to me,” Steve had replied, grinding his teeth together, anger bursting from the seams. 

Tony had watched Steve stalk back out the lab doors and smirked at his retreating figure. 

F.R.I.D.A.Y. was relaying the outburst to you when the rapping of knuckles began on your door. You just wanted to ignore it and go back to your tv show, but when the knocking just got more insistent, you had no choice but to pause it and get up.

“You withdrew from future missions?” Steve began angrily, pushing through the open doorway. 

Shocked, you moved to let him in, shutting the door after he entered rather rudely.

“Yes, I withdrew from future missions,” You reply, crossing your arms over your chest, closing yourself off to him.

“You’re a member of my team. Withdrawals come directly to me,” Steve shoots back. He stands tall in front of you, intimidatingly large and if you weren’t so distraught and angry, you would be flowing like Niagara Falls.

“Fine.” You give in, walking to grab the paperwork off the coffee table. You’d submitted it to Tony, but he’d insisted that paperwork wasn’t required in your case.

You shove the paperwork to him, holding it out for him to take. He looks down at it for a moment, assessing the situation before taking the small stack of paper.

You watch him read it with annoyance, wanting him to just leave you alone and stop torturing you with his gorgeous blue eyes that are currently scanning the pages, his soft blonde hair that’s flopped around his forehead, his perfect fucking everything.

It takes a few minutes, but finally, he hums, looks back up at you with those ocean blue eyes, and lifts the paperwork up, drawing your attention to it.

“You’re not withdrawing from missions,” Steve talks finally. Your mouth opening to rebuttal the denial, but no words come out, no words circle through your brain to his obscenity. 

Any sane person could see how you were struggling; clothing spewed across the apartment, dirty dishes everywhere, your hair in a bird’s nest on your head, you’d even resorted to a loose sweatshirt instead of your usual tight ones. 

You were the seductress, capable of wooing a man into submitting to you, capable of unrelenting prowess without even a hint of power, but Steve was stoically incapable of recognizing your true feelings.

“Fine,” You conclude, reaching for the paperwork which he hands over easily, but you’re not done, you want him to see the pain you’re in instead of just push you aside like you’re nothing.

You find the nearest pen, slam the paperwork down and angrily scribble out ‘temporary withdrawal’ and write ‘permanent resignation’ over the top. 

Steve’s eyes go from angry to confusion when you hand the paperwork back, clearly unaware (still) of the ramifications of his actions.

“Because I rejected you?” He speaks up after a moment. You swear you hear his voice waver, but when his blue eyes filled with anger find yours, you push guilt out from your chest and maintain your anger.

“No,” You snap, glaring across the room at him. “Because I placed my heart at your feet and you stomped on it.”


	2. The Art of Seclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part to a fic I didn’t even plan on writing, but it’s fun. It has been completely zero pressure and I’m liking the progression. The next part will be the final part and I’m super busy tomorrow so it might not be up for a few days, but I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Edit: I've written the next chapter over and over again, deleted it over and over again, and I just don't like it. I am going to put off posting it until I am completely happy with it, because I just want to love it as much as I love the rest of the chapters. I know you guys have been on my back to post more and some people have been pretty rude about it, but unfortunately life happens and I am very self-critical. It'll be up soon.

You’d never experienced love. 

Love was this foreign, fairytale concept that you’re parents had assured you would come naturally when you met the right person.

They told you the ‘right person’ would love you in return unconditionally and love, while not being easy, would be worth it, even for what might feel like two seconds of a relationship in a blip of your life, then you’ll meet someone else and it’ll be eternal, marriage will follow, then children, and you’ll fight for each other every day.

Your parents had been right about your love for the right person, they had been right that it would come along when you least expect it and that it would be unrulingly hard, achingly difficult, but what they’d never counted on was unrequited love.

Your brother’s friends never stopped staring at you when they’d come over to your house. Your dad’s work colleagues were always eager to come over for poker nights to spy on their friends recently legal daughter. The memories of all the men that looked at you as if you owed them something bring up bile in your throat. 

You’d never wanted someone to take ownership of your heart, you’d never wanted to admit that love was a possibility, but entering that conference room, seeing him, in jeans and a t-shirt clearly two sizes too small and holding that mug that in your hands would have been massive, but in his was tiny by comparison.

Your entire body had clenched, your stomach had formed into knots, and you thought you might pass out right then and there. Just one look at him and you’d fallen head over heels, you’d assessed his wants and needs, transformed into what you thought he wanted, but it wasn’t enough. 

You were you as much as you could be, but the clothing, the hair, the makeup; an independent modern woman, but what you never considered is that he just didn’t want you, as a whole, as a person.

After the confrontation, Steve left your apartment without another word, taking your admission with a grain of salt and stalking off shortly after ripping your paperwork up to shreds.

Tony had found you moments later, informing you of your temporary dismissal of service.

“Only for a few weeks,” He had told you, looking sullen with Cap’s attitude. “Just until Cap cools down and you can work with him without tearing his head off.”

So, you bury yourself in all the great love stories, abandoning the look you’d put yourself into, a promiscuous woman that Steve, the post-ice Steve, the man with an agenda, picture perfect woman that he’d want to share his bed with, even for one night, the woman the Avengers needed.

You slouch around the compound in jeans and baggy t-shirts, pulling all the clothing that you’d buried in the back of your closet and replacing them with your new wardrobe. Gone are the shorts and little tank tops, gone is the revealing work out clothing; instead the team watches you work out in long tights and big shirts, burying yourself in the clothing that had once graced your skin.

You bury yourself between the cushions of the common room couch and read all the love stories, imagining these men exist, imagining that someone in this world wants you as much as you want them.

Feet up on the coffee table, a blanket over your lap, one hand nursing a cup of tea, and the other holding your book. The two weeks are about to be up, and the team has been away on a mission for the most of it, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your Jane Austen paperbacks, suffering and going mad every day that passes.

“Miss Y/N, the quinjet has landed,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. announces to you as you drain the last of your tea, sitting amongst the pillows. You battle momentarily with whether to get up and go greet your friends or go to your room and hide from them, suffer some more without them having to see.

The first wins out and you chuck the blanket off of you and run for the landing bay. wanting to throw your arms around Tony and demand him to not leave you alone this long again.

The air stands still as the elevator door slides open, standing thirty feet away are your teammates, holding themselves up straight, some of them have cuts and bruises. Your eyes find Steve, a gash cut through the stomach of his suit, but from your quick assessment, he looks to be fine, standing by his side to you, looking into the quinjet.

You skim your teammates, looking for the bright-eyed billionaire, but when your eyes don’t find him, your heart sinks.

Maybe he stayed a few more days, maybe he had another personal mission, or maybe… You stop yourself, not wanting it to be a possibility.

“Y/N!” Wanda yells, rushing over to you, making the other Avengers stand at attention. 

You take her in your arms quickly, hugging her small form against your body. Your eyes on Steve as you wrap your arms around her, watching his eyes find yours, seeing the sorrow that fills them. You tell yourself it’s because of the gruelling mission and not because of seeing you.

“Tony…” Wanda begins, but you stop listening because the medics are coming out of the quinjet with a stretcher, holding the unmissable body of Tony Stark with an oxygen mask on and bleeding from his shoulder.

You can’t help your legs move as you stumble to follow the medics, aware of the Avengers eyes following your body, but you don’t care because your best friend, the man who accepted you for everything that comes along with seduction, for the daddy issues, and the loneliness you both share, has been shot and while you watch his eyes blink up at the medics and you know he is going to be fine, you still feel the healing heart in your chest rip from its stitches and begin bleeding a river of sadness within you.

“You don’t have to sit with me, you know,” Tony tells you after the nurse stitched his wound up. Bullet-free. Scoffing, you look up at the man, his kind, brown eyes cast down to you. “Especially considering your Captain is back.”

“My Captain,” You laugh, horrified. A smirk rises on Tony’s lips, making you think that he knows something you don’t. “Tony, do you know why I’m so good at seducing people?”

“You’re outrageously gorgeous,” Tony states, confident in his answer. His compliment makes you smile, but you shake your head, determined to make a point.

“No. It’s because I can read people, assess what they want, assess their desires and needs. I can see what part of my body attracts their eyes or what type of woman they require. I can see how they want me, where they want me, why they want me, and the same goes for the opposite,” You tell him, casting your eyes down to your hands, the pain of rejection returning. “I can see how much they don’t want me, what their true emotions are when they see me, and why they don’t want me.”

“And what do you see in Cap?” He’s amused, probably thinking you haven’t seen anything in Steve, any of the emotions he’d project when you’d even enter a room.

“Disgust, annoyance, irritation, anger, frustration…” You begin, only for Tony to interrupt you. You keep your head down, unwanting to meet his eyes because you might cry.

“Sexual frustration?” Tony asks, cheekily. You huff out a chuckle, one that sounds as sad as you feel.

“No, Tony. As in frustration that the conversation hasn’t ended, frustration that I hadn’t left him alone, frustration that I was in the same room as him.” The admission is making your chest hurt and when Tony doesn’t reply, you lift your eyes to him, watching as he stares down at you, sorrow filling his gaze. 

“You’re really in love with him, aren’t you?” He asks. It almost sounds like an already answered question, like he knows the answer and one look or one sound that comes from you is confirmation.

“You know, I have only ever seen him smile before I enter a room. I sometimes turn my music off in my headphones at the gym just to hear him talk happily with everyone else. His voice is so soothing when it’s not screaming at me.” You shrug your shoulders, pushing as hard as you can to not let the tears fall. “I don’t really understand why he is so cold with me. I tried really hard in the beginning to establish a simple friendship and when he shut me down, I thought maybe, just maybe he wanted a relationship instead, but I’ve never been able to get more than five words at a time out of him.”

It’s heartbreaking to admit just how much Steve’s coldness effects you, his hard, blue eyes in their glaring stare flash through your eyes and it shakes you to the core.

The tears begin to drip down your cheeks, the emotions bubbling over the threshold, simmering to the surface. You let the sobs overtake your body, cries rising from your throat.

Tony takes hold of your shoulders, pulling you quickly to him, avoiding his sore shoulder, he tucks you under his arm.

“I just want him to look at me like he looked at Sharon.”

The words make Tony tangle his fingers in your hair and lean his chin on the top of your head, allowing you to bury your face in his chest. The sobs raking through your body, causing you to shake in Tony’s embrace.

“Maybe, and hear me out,” Tony begins when your sobs begin to falter, your breathing becoming less erratic. “Maybe he thinks that he’s just another target, just another silly plaything.”

“I’ve never given him any reason to believe that I was using him,” You huff, pulling away from Tony’s chest. You cheeks stained with tears, your eyes swollen, lips chapped from chewing on them. “I never touch anyone but him.”

“Maybe he just hasn’t opened his eyes,” A voice behind you begins. The voice startles you, causing you to jump away from Tony’s chest. 

Turning around to greet the owner of the voice as you recognize it’s ruggedness, it’s aching familiarity, but the sad sound in the voice doesn’t place within your mind.

You shake your head, rub your eyes, willing yourself to believe that what you’re looking at is a mere dream, a hallucination, maybe from all the tea, but it’s not and he’s standing there, leaning against the doorway and looking at you with an expression you’ve only seen him give Bucky… A look of regret.

“Can we talk?” Steve asks you, grazing his blue eyes from you to Tony.

“You knew he was there, didn’t you?” You ask, turning to look back at your obscene father-like counterpart. A wide grin spreads across Tony’s lips and he shrugs, only to cry out in pain from the movement of his shoulder.

“Maybe,” He says with a painful smile. 

You turn to look at Steve again, regarding him with a pointed stare, watching him as he looks back at you. You assess him, your eyes travelling across his body; tension, nervousness, guilt, sadness. 

“Please?” He asks finally, gaining your attention from staring at his hand placement. You huff out a breath, nerves filling your chest.

Nothing bad could come from talking, you conclude rising from your chair.


End file.
